Abstract

The dawn of democracy in South Africa in 1994 necessitated innovations in education. An educational approach known as Outcomes-based Education (OBE) was introduced in 1998. Many changes will eventually also have to be made in the History classroom, as the new approach is characterised by a competency-based, interactive and learner-centred methodology. Closer scrutiny of the above educational innovation reveals the existence of a number of problems.The aim of this article is: Firstly, to sensitise the curriculum developers and educational administrators, who are involved in the revamping of History as a school subject, to the need to gain independent and well-reasoned knowledge of some of the issues involved in outcomes-based History teaching, because such informed knowledge is an essential element in the successful implementation of the latter in South African public schools. Secondly, to be proactive and to assist in the retraining of History educators so that they will be able to teach outcomes-based History with success in their classrooms when it is implemented in public schools.